Blog

Written by Julia Cleghorn Cow farts and burps are a big, smelly problem. They contain a lot of methane – a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. Kangaroos, on the other hand, produce a lot less methane when they toot.

Written by Emily Standen Did you know 2016 is the International Year of Pulses? Take your hand off you wrist though – this type of pulse refers to food, not your heartbeat!

When you’re installing solar panels, it’s important to point them at the Sun. But the Sun isn’t always in the same place – it moves across the sky over the course of a day. If you can aim the panels towards the Sun as it moves, they can produce up to 40 per cent more power […]

Imagine this game: you and a stranger are sitting in front of a machine. The machine has two piles of lollies. There’s one pile for you and one for your partner. You have two handles. Pull the green handle and you both get lollies. Pull the red one and no one gets anything.

The Australian National Maritime Museum is home to our very own HMB Endeavour. This recreation of Captain Cook’s ship hosts thousands of visitors every year. But there are many more people who aren’t able to pay a visit. So a team from the CSIRO stepped in to help.

In the latest issue of Double Helix magazine, we feature solar powered cars racing from Darwin to Adelaide. They zoomed to the finish line last week. The winner is Dutch team Nuon with their car Nuna 8!

Hidden within our cells, DNA is the hard drive of the human body. Each copy of DNA contains instructions for all the proteins needed to make a person. But this creative compendium is always under attack. This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to three people who found out what’s repairing our genetic treasure.

The longest chain of continental volcanoes in the world was recently discovered in Australia. It stretches from near Mackay in Queensland down to Cosgrove in Victoria.

Written by Azmina Hossain The crown-of-thorns is a venomous starfish that lives in the Great Barrier Reef. Growing up to massive lengths of 80 centimetres and having a body entirely covered in toxic spikes, the starfish is almost indestructible and is a vicious predator. They eat coral, the building blocks of the Great Barrier Reef. […]

For millions of years, stick insects roamed the beautiful Lord Howe Island. Then one fateful day in 1918, a ship ran aground and fleeing rats decided to make the island home – and stick insects their dinner. Within a few years, people believed the insects were extinct.